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Comment by colin_jack | Hacker News Reader

I'm not an expert on the UK legal system but one thing I enjoyed about the Serial podcast was getting an insight into just how crazy the US system can be.

Anyway 10 days is obviously nothing, especially when he's cost a man 25 years, but at least it's an attempt to hold someone responsible for a despicable act.

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If you found that interesting, there's an excellent episode of This American Life called "The Arms Trader" which is another example of how messed up the law can be over the pond. The FBI (or another TLA agency) basically played both buyer and seller in a bogus arms deal, and managed to stitch up a bumbling old man for facilitating the transaction. It's almost comical how much handholding they needed to do with this guy to coax him into this situation, until you realise they then came down on him like a ton of bricks.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/292/t...

Ta will definitely give it a look, one nice thing about Serial is it put me onto This American Life which I'm enjoying (in parts, some of it puts my teeth on edge).

The depressing bit about the system is even when it's clear there's been a potential miscarriage of justice, and some poor sod has spent years behind bars on very shaky grounds, the system still tries its best to keep them there without retrial.

People should also definitely check out "The Convert." The FBI sent some guy into a mosque to act like a Muslim radical and to try to get members of the mosque to plant a terrorist attack. He befriended some guys and hung out with them, and then tried to get them in trouble by telling them they should plan a terrorist attack. The guys from the mosque promptly called the FBI to turn over the FBI plant (not knowing he was an FBI plant). The FBI responded by pressing charges against one of the guys from the mosque because of some youtube videos he shared.

It's insane.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/471/t...

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